Deity ABC's - Achieving Better Consistency

[krikav]

Spoiler Edirne Granary whip :

If I whip now, the granary will be finished at 11/22, and then at +3 food it will take 4 turns to grow to pop2 again.
This will let the granary store up 12 food (caps out at 11) and I will carry over 11.

If I wait one more turn, I would finish the granary at 14/22, and would then just have 3 turns to grow and have a granary storage of 9, 2 less than ideal.
So the right turn to whip is now.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T71 :

Now I'm making plans for how and when to reach writing, and how to get libraries up. I do plan to get libraries in all 3 cities here. Edirne is a city that could get along without as there isn't much commerce there but a borderpop is nice and there will be a period where happycap makes it very nice to run scientists there. Might even be the spot to spawn the first GSci.
I did catch the overflow from the worker into a settler in Istanbul, landing at 11/100 to set up for a 3pop whip later on, and also planning on a 3pop whip of library in Edirne which is quite lucky with food. In Istanbul I planned to 2pop a barracks for overflow to set up a 2pop whip of library.
Tiles that Edirne/Ankara can reach are prioritized for cottages to mature them for capital, and I want at least one farm for Istanbul to help it grow abit quicker.
A city 2S of ivory is concievable but not likely, so I think thats the best spot for a farm.

Up at writing, things have changed. The 11 hammers in the settler was approaching decay and I oped to get that settler out before the library build instead.

Somewhere after AH I saw I needed more workers so set up Edirne to whip one out and utilize overflow+chop to finish the library, but when I had the overflow in hand I could not resist 1turning yet another worker.

Ankara is ready for it's library whip.

Edirne steals the banana farm to grow up to pop3 through unhappines abit easier. I could have put another hammer into the library which was at 29/90 and 2pop whip it, but if I can I want to stay with big whips here in Edirne.

Built a scout to check out what Sury is doing. WvO has founded Judaism too and I got spread from it, he has sent two missionaries too.
The settler I did in Istanbul delayed library in capital abit, I should probably not have done 0% slider for as long as I did, but out of habit I do tend to run 0% slider before the library in capital is done.
I'm entering the classical era with HBR because it gives some cities (capital+Edirne) something useful to sink hammers into with the stables.
I can build HAs in preparation for a construction attack later on, and it's needed for the elephants.
It's also a good tradebait, Aestetics doesn't do much for me now when don't have 3 monuments and can failgold with SoZ, and I also think it's more likely that Sury/WvO goes for early aestethics than early HBR.

There are some calendar resources (Silk+Banana) and that coastal fish is nice too. So I kind of think that delaying fishing/sailing to possibly bulb machinery+engineering is off here. Capital also looks nice to get an academy in early on.

5 workers feels kind of comfortable. Glad I went for another one.

Diplo is tough. I don't dare going into Hindu with Sury in Buddhism. WvO is also shaping up to be a lightning rod of hatred. I'm bound to get requests to stop trading with him, which I cannot agree to, so I sort of want to shut borders with him to avoid having such requests. But I also really appreciate him spreading religion around.
I do think that Sury is the best target still, but diplo is starting to tell me that I should turn around and aim for Willy instead.
Noone has alpha, and there is no yummy happines resources available except for Capac who has 3 gold but wants ivory for them.

 

[krikav]

Attached saves between T50 and T71 (autosaves too).

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T80 :

Justinian got gems for trade, woo hoo!

Sabotage production divided by Support city revolt times 108.33 is equal to hammer invested in queue. Sury is building wonders in both these cities.

Sure enough!

Situation at HBR. Now I put "enough" beakers into Alpha to get it for HBR once someone techs alpha. They give you 80% of the value for a tech.

I think this was 10-20 beakers too much, but better than than getting it a turn late.

Math next turn, nice.

I think this could have been a crossroads, keep running scientists in Edirne+Istanbul and get Academy, or bulb machinery+engineering. But I choose otherwise.
I'll try to get IW+Poly from WvO now, and self-tech fishing (for the southern fish), and masonry+priesthood. Vicky have Monarchy for trade.
If I can get monarchy I can start whipping somewhat heavily while teching construction.
Want to hit Sury sooner rather than later, he is getting quite big and could become dangerous.

 

[Berks]

Hi Krikav,

Sorry to make things difficult, I can post some screenshots. I do appreciate all the effort you're putting in to reporting your game and commenting on specific moves.

I don't have any plan for specific comparisons at set checkpoints. What I'm most interested in is finding potential holes in my game and fixing them. I've already found a few things I could have done better, or different approaches I could have taken.

With the granary whip, I thought whipping away a 2F 1H tile would be better to reduce maintenance, but I'm effectively throwing away 1h/turn for the chance at saving 1g until the bin is half full? If say Pig was improved I would have waited until the bin would be half full.

I did have the chop in the worker initially but I couldn't think of a good use for the overflow, I have enough warriors, granary is done and as you point out I need that city to start growing.
An early granary completion here might have been inaccurate when compared to simply growing and slow building while chopping workers in Istanbul and waiting for Writing.

The depth in this game is amazing which is why we keep playing I guess.

Will play a few more turns now, with the plan being to settle the 3rd banana city, get some workers out and start cottaging, heading to writing.

 

[Berks]

T51 - T

T51 - Sury settles to my E, killing the slow helper spot. Still can claim Horses at least. Whip the Settler. Worker starts chopping forest. I thought about farming the banana but want the 4th settler out around the time Writing's ready.

T52 - Warrior to the W is attacked by a Barb warrior and wins. Have 58H in a worker which I will finish next turn. I have a safe 4th city site so I will store the chop in the Settler and regrow on a Barracks.
Find Horse/Corn/Banana to the south, along with some forest. Maybe this is a better 4th site with more food and the ability to chop out an army?

T53 - Chop done, now 35H in Settler. New Worker starts improving Ivory.

T54 - Ankara settled. Found Fish to the S. I think the best site for elepult war is 2N of the fish.

T56 - Sury got Hinduism and switched. I've mapped the S area, but Willem's looking at the Dry Corn site directly S. I don't think its worth grabbing that, but we should still have time to dash for the SE if we want.
T57 - Ivory improved.
T58 - Banana farmed.

T60 - Sury had a settler party heading SE but he settled closer to his capital. I whip the Settler so I can regrow on Library build.

T61 - Finally meet Charly again. Writing is in.
Logical tech options seem to be Aesthetics for trade, Masonry -> Construction, or HBR. If I remember correctly, Aesthetics and HBR are low priority techs for AI. I don't think I have enough research power for both Aesthetics and HBR, AI will probably beat me to Construction, so therefore I think HBR is best. Still collecting gold for now.

I'm connected with Willem and Charly(!), but not Sury who I share a river with. Not sure how that works? See TR screenshot. I open borders with Sury and Willem hoping to get a religion spread.

T62 - Sury has metals. He built TGW this turn, seems really late.

A turn by turn isn't all that useful now so I'll condense the report.

T70 - Libraries chopped and whipped in capital and Edirne. I have settled Bursa and almost roaded to it, with a 2nd worker improving Corn. I have 4 workers now, could probably use one more. Run GS in Edirne at size 4 seems best, with Ankara and Istanbul working the cottages.

T75 - I meet HC who is plotting. Charly asks for stopping trade with Sury, I refuse. Charly and HC have their own religions so there should be tensions. Only HC has alpha and Gold, but I have nothing to trade him. Start hooking my resources up and roading into Sury. Willem's finally sending missionaries.

T77: Sury settled in my face again, cutting off Bursa. I have OB so the routes stay, but I think I need to attack Sury first.

T80: HBR in. HC already had it and no one else has Alpha. Willem is researching Alpha so I can trade HBR for Alpha to him after putting a few turns in.

Stop here. I attached some screens, please let me know if there are more helpful ones.

 

[Berks]

@krikav

Took a look through your save. You got HBR 1040BC and were able to leverage it in trade.
The gem trade and meeting all the AI's is good, and you have scouted your target lands. Overall I think you're in a very good position, well played so far

I might not have the same chances as I only reached it in 875BC and HC has it. If Willem has HBR too I might be too far behind to launch a successful attack.

The overall development is still ahead and this is becoming more evident as more turns pass. You are pretty close to starting on your army whereas I am still building Barracks, and you have about 5-10 more beakers a turn, not even accounting for the extra techs researched and traded for.

I'm not sure about Fishing but I'm sure you can make it work. Will continue looking on with interest.

Can I ask why HA and not Archers? we are moving at 1 speed and the Archers can be left behind as city garrisons. Archers tend to kill the last few defenders just as easy. Not a huge point, just trying to learn more.

 

[krikav]

@Berks
Screenshots I find most helpfull are the empire overview ones, but not that far zoomed out as you had there. Rather so you can see the units etc.
Hard to tell whats most important, but with a overview it's easy to catch something of interest.

Like this:

Spoiler :

I would almost certainly whip the library in Ankara.
Perhaps put hammers into stables and whip it in capital to resolve unhappines issue? Perhaps you should have stagnated on scientists to avoid growing into unhappines there.
Bummer that Capac already had HBR. I would put some beakers into alpha (about 180-190 beakers). In all likelyhood, someone else of the other AIs will get it soon and HBR might be good with them.
Very annoying settlement from Sury there, not sure what to make of that.
I like your diplo situation better than I had. I would revolt to Hindu right away to reduce likelyhood for a untimely DoW from him (or Willy for that matter).

 

[krikav]

I was hoping to trade away horses for alot of resources when I had a few HAs. I love to have some two-movers following along with a 1-move stack. They can kill and move back, thats really neat. Overall a much stronger unit too, can attack reliably when archers can't.
Fishing... Not so sure about that one. I should probably have gone for mason or something opening up toward monarchytrades first. But I wanted fishing for the fish down south, and also to start working toward calendar.
I wanted to start whipping abit lightly and couldn't really run specialists much, so bulbing was starting to look bad.

I have played up until T116 by now, will write up abit now.

 

[Berks]

Ok, I also checked the resource screen each turn as soon as I noticed I had routes to Willem and Charly, but either nothing available, or I had nothing to trade back (eg HC with gold, wouldnt take Ivory)
I'm planning to whip the Library but left it in case there was a good reason not to.
Hindu now is a good idea. Again I was planning to do so but wanted to see if any reason not to. Taking the fact you suggested both of these moves as evidence they are correct.

The in between settle is painful but I will get that city soon enough. Diplo for me is safer short term but longer term a bit more difficult. Can see both Charly and HC making a ton of demands and hating me long term.

Your diplo looks difficult, ideally Willem would be in Bud and Sury in Hindu, but we want those shinies from Sury!!!

Masonry might be good next for you, but you can trade for it, unsure if you should worry about WFYABTA though.

Calendar is good but didn't seem too worthwhile to me, just 1 happy res until we take those spices at least.
My thinking is Monarchy is enough for now, and we can either head direct for Engineering or use a Philo bulb to trade for Feud/Mach down the line.

1AD seems a good pace for next set unless something crazy happens.

 

[krikav]

I get IW during this set, so spoiler alert for that.

Spoiler T109 :

The session did not start good. I had forgot to check worst enemes etc. I really should have closed borders with Wilhelm. I have no hope in adopting Hindu as it is now, and there is no need to keep the borders open and possibly anger the others.
Charly made the demand, and then changed his W/E to Capac instead. Everyone hates someone... Difficult situation. :|

Here I trade math+alpha for IW+Poly with Willy. Then I build research and hire some specialists to finish priesthood in one turn.
The plan was to get monarchy from Vicky next turn.
I was very relieved to see iron pop up in the desert. Awkward spot that will eat many workerturns, but still wonderful to have metal already.

This screwed up my plan completely. Ofcourse I have to agree to his demand. Super nice to have a 10 turn treaty when I'm vunerable and building up. But this upsets Vicky so my monarchy trade is off. Can't get anything from her as she becomes annoyed by this.

No panic though, monarhcy you almost always get. A pair of turns later Justinian has it, but my techs are not good enough.
One turn into Monarchy does the trick though.

T85 Vicky asks me to join her war against Capac. But I don't want that.
Before revolting to HR, I do trade for Monotheism though, so I can do a double-switch.
A while later I build a missionary to fix the city I had only Judaism in. Willy did all other cities even though he took his sweet time. No revolt to Hindu yet though.
Was also hoping faintly that Willy would spread enough Hindu to Sury that he would swap, and that shared religion+OR (Surys fav civic) would get him pleased. That didn't happen though.


T91 Justinian DoWs Capac. I should probably have agreed to Vickys request for war assistance. Capac is too advanced and I couldn't get anything useful from him anyway.

T92 Sury starts to plot when we had 1 turn left of the peacetreaty, wee!
T95 I get my GSci form Edirne and make an academy in capital.

Ok, now I swap to Hindu. Willy is my only friend in this game it seems. I'm not sure, but it seems like most AIs are to the east, and having one front safe is nice.

I get currency+50g for my techs from Willy. And Calendar+50 from Charly for alpha+construction.
I kind of wanted to keep some trading chips toward Willy, but couldn't make it work. Getting currency from Vicky required me to pay up more than I was willing, or overpay with all techs and risk more diplo hits.

Somewhere here Sury declared on Charly.
T100 Charly asks me for HBR and I give it to him.
T101 he asks me to join his war against Sury and I say Ok, lets go mate!
A few turns earlier than I wanted by when the king calls you come.
I did go for Theology of all thechs here. Capac I think it was had MC, and Willy was teching MC too, so I figured I could get that from Willy for Theo, and I wanted the civic too.
I'm kind of commited to a long drawn out war with Sury, he is strong and I might have to throw in everything to get his land. No half measures. I rather go way overkill than cut short and have my attack grind to a halt before Pyramids.
I do have

Had to add 95g to get MC too.

I didn't like to cease whipping units, but I did so anyway. Spent a few turns putting some hammers into forges until they where ready to whip and once that was done I revolted to theo.
I was hoping to get feud too, but did not.

Things where awful quiet from Sury, but then I found out why. Good thing he sent that stack this way.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T117 :

Longbows made their enterance.
I did promote an elephant with flank2 here and it got 40% chance to survive, that injured that lone longbow and made things easier for the catapults.

T112 Charly demands MC and he gets it. T113 CoL becomes available from multiple AIs and I trade away MC+5g for CoL with Justinian.
T115 I pay through the nose to get Feudalism (MC+Costurction+280g with Vicky)


T117
Sury has just attacked with his doomstack, and it did not look good at all for Sury. Charly is bound to have gotten alot of war success here.

Pyramids within reach.

And after that, this is how the army stands.
Once longbows shows up, cities start to cost alot of catapults. Sury has a hill city left up north where Hanging gardens is.
Almost all live catapults are still some turns from the front, so a ceasefire here would be nice.

Did steal a worker to check out his city, nasty spears that will likely kill my horse.
He doesn't look like he has much units left though.

That iron city should probably be razed. The other ones I want. Don't think it makes sense to try get Sury as a vassal here.

Charly is willing to stop fighting for feud+40g. And I think I have to take that to avoid having Sury vassal to Charly.
With Pyramids in, I have to think how to proceed now. Should I revolt to vassalage+police state and continue to build and push forward? It would be nice to know that I can mop up Sury, but it's also the risk to go way overkill. I can't continue with Charly without trebuchets
I have to check and think if it's possible that Sury peacevassals if I bribe away Charly and make a ceasefire with him.

Have tried to slow down with the whipping abit. And also started to put some whip overflow into Chicken Itza. (269hammers into it so far).
That and the gold stored equals about 10 turns of research.
There is no GPeoplepoint anywhere. Fastest possible is to run 2 scientists+engineer in capital and that gives a GPerson in 19 turns.
Tao isn't founded yet so it would be sweet to bulb philo, but that is not going to happen I think.
Abit unfortunate, but I think it was good to prioritize unit whipping and not Gpeople.

 

[krikav]

Saves attached, I played the viking game and forgot to clear autosaves, so they are a mess now.

 

[krikav]

Just played some mopup war in a hurry.

Spoiler T134 :

Bribed Charly off Sury. Took a ceasefire and changed civics to policestate+vassalage and proceeded to whip. Mainly more elephants as they have utility later possibly upgrading to cuirs.

At most cities, 2-4 catapults where sacrificed (almost allways promoted for max collateral) and then just attack. I felt bombarding would take too much time.

Rep for happines and extra beakers. OrgRel to make building infrastructure easier. No case as most cities will just grow or whip buildings, the select few that can run specialists can make do with the ones they get from library.

Quite costly war, but now I got some land to work with.

I hope I have time to whip a settler in Angkor Thom to settle 1W of sugar to help secure that from Charlys culture.
I have a ton of filler cities to settle here.
Chicken Itza is still not built and I have lost count of how much failgold I have pending there, but I did trade away my stone to Vicky for dye at some point so not that much more.
Edirne has 56 turns unhappines and Ankara/Bursa are between 40-50.
Justinian/WvO have philosopy already, but I might get some useful things for it from Charly/Vicky. Capac hates me but that might change.
Not a comfortable position here, with almost all cities Hindu, and Charly+Justinian in Buddhism close by. I think it was Justinian who founded Tao so he might change eventually.

 

[Berks]

Played on from my position.

T82: Charly has alpha, put some turns in and trade HBR for Alpha.
Trade Alpha to Sury for IW.
Only HC has math and I'm not trading WvO HBR for Masonry yet.

Teched Archery to build stack fillers and hoping for Math to become available.

T84: No math, start teching it.

T87: Sury builds Pyramids.

T89: Math in, trade to Charly for Masonry and Myst. OB with him. He also has red fist now. Sury is his WE so hoping he attacks so I can backstab.

Hammams queued up. Bursa getting culture squeezed but I have whipped the Library there now.

T96: Met Justin.

T97: Sury builds MoM and HG!

T98: Construction in. Start on Currency, no one has this.

Have not been able to trade for any happy resources yet!

I realise I need PH for Monarchy so I trade Math to Willem for Poly + Med and Const. for Monarchy.

Have to attack Sury, Willem almost has LB's.

T103: Meet Vicky - she's everyone else's WE and fighting HC. They're both very small. Willem has LB's now.

T105: Stack's mostly in position. 5 cats, 3 WE, 3 axe, 2 spear and 3 archers. Charly hasn't declared yet.

T106: Capture the annoying city of Bantay Kdei, losing a single cata. Sury was kind enough to clear the jungle, road, and improve the Banana!
He also left me the forests to chop!

Spies destroyed Granary in Istanbul.

Charly left war mode - *sigh* and Justin entered it - I think he's after Vicky.
And naturally Currency was traded around before I could finish it.

T107 Justin attacks Vicky

T113: Currency was in, only Charly missing it so I get MC for Currency+Const. I finally found Charly stack too hiding all the way back in Pisa. No idea what he had planned.
Capture Raja butSury has 2 stacks to take it back, so I retreat out.

T114: Sury goes past his city to counterattack. He has 3 chariots able to attack Bursa next turn and I can only whip an axe to join my Warrior and wounded Cata, or I can upgrade to a Spear. He also has a half dozen unit stack coming in from the W.

Stop here for advice, this feels like an uphill struggle from here. I can take Raja and offer it back for peace but then I'm miles behind Willem and I see no way to make quick progress against Sury in 10 turns.

@krikav

Good job on wiping out Sury. Bit concerned Justin has 2 vassals though!

Also with the autosaves, appreciate having them available but if its' too much hassle to include please feel free to drop them. Don't want this to be work for you!

 

[krikav]

@Berks

Spoiler :

Yes, my game has it's fair share of worry... Both Justinian and Charly are big and nasty. And I can't really flip to their side either without angering Wilhelm.
But there should be a way now that I have gotten land. If nothing else I could go religious-less vass+theo and somewhat please them both. Would mean a much worse economy, but that can be recovered in time.
It's different phases/eras.. First tight expansion and heavy focus on research, then all at once I start to whip away villages and continue to whip mercilessly all while falling further and further behind in tech.
Now it's time to make another sharp turn, and I think the main focus right now is to find safe footing.


The autosaves shouldn't really be any problem, but I haven't gotten into the habit of clearing the autosave folder and backuping the saves when transitioning from one game to another. I know that they are very helpful to keep track of turn 2 turn actions.

Will look through your saves now, but from writeup and the screens.
MoM in Khmer territory is really really sweet!
Very annoying that he bypassed you and counterattacked, hitting him in flatland cities is preferable.
Too bad Charly chickened out, but perhaps you attacked abit prematurely? Going in alone is a different business than piggybacking. In my game I was hesitant to DoW at that time I did, but I was asked by Charly so I felt the need to.
Sometimes I think it's better to just continue buildup and only strike when the army is more or less unstoppable. Every turn that the AI is in peace, they build less units and more buildings, and if they are not close to any key tech that would complicate the war there is no need to rush.

I understand the sense of urgency though, when you start to fall behind and the others move away in tech it's hard to keep cool and continue to demolish your economy whipping units that are just hanging around, you kind of want to make the units start yielding a return.

But "No way to get quick progress against sury in 10 turns" is the wrong aim imho. The strategic plan should be more "Make sure to take Surys land and then recover.". If that takes until T180 and you have to cottage up and self-tech everything from that point, that can be perfecly ok too.

But now I'm diving into the saves.

 

[krikav]

Saves feedback:

Spoiler :

T105:

I would have prefered to have some 2-movers in position here. Would be nice to be able to capture some workers T0 to att more war success early on, also getting the workers is sweet.
You have 2 spears and one more whipped (the one whipped is to get the catapult out with overflow I think), and a fourth spear ready to be built with overflow.
I don't like spears at all here, don't think I built a single one.
War elephants defend much better against all mounted and the spears can't really bring much punch to an offensive. I think this is extra off the mark, since you do have archers ready to act as city garisssons and defenders.
I don't think this is the turn to declare. Sury might be moving toward longbows and that would be annoying, but other than that, the only thing you will get by delaying is the possibility that Charly DoWs first, sending Khmer units his way. (Ofcourse now in hindsight that might be a pipedream, but from the T105 situation I think thats worth waiting for.)
Also, you can sell pristhood for 55g, I would do that before any DoW.

T107:
This is the path I would choose when continuing forward. Closest city first, cutting him down to size fastest possible. Then good defensive terrain most of the way toward his capital. A annoying hill city on the way, that could be good to finish before longbows show up, of if it looks to nasty you can simply bypass it.
Raja is on flatland and looks like it will take longer to conquer, and it looks abit harder to defend and it's on flatland and can be easier to get later.
Pushing toward the wonders is of highest priority and if you go toward the capital from Raja, you are walking on flatland multiple turns with culture and cities from all sides.
Edirne is working the desert iron (4H) instead of a riverside grassland farm and Bursa is working a 1F2H forest instead of a grassland farm. Both these are wrong imho. Such measures you take when cities are very close to whip saturation and simply can't take it anymore. Up until that point you should just work food whenever possible. Sometimes it makes sense to go for some hammer tiles to finish a unit sooner, but most of the time, just putting another unit into the queue and whipping that one is better, finishing the ones who are lacking hammers with overflow while continuing to work food.
Bantu Kei has a hamman in queue, It should probably have a unit in queue. The only thing that could be worth delaying units for might be a barracks, but more units in the field sooner probably trumps that too. (It's hard though.. I really want Barracks first. :| )
I would give Charly construction for Mono and do a double-sitch to HR+OR, and go into Hindu at some point too, should probably have been done previously.
Also lock up corn for spices with Charly, and pigs for wine or sugar with Vicky. I would add a 10-turn reminder (Alt+M) to remind myself to cancel the deal and renegotiate it with Vicky though, as she is W/E of many.

The T114 situation looks annoying. This is what I would have done:

Spoiler :

Ok, what can I kill/take to ramp up my war success? Only winning fights. (The elephants had 80% odds against the swords). Sury still doesn't want ceasefire.
Can I get Charly into the action? Nah, he is cautious.

Well, this gets him to pleased. But my money isn't enough to make him join the war.
I beg his 40g but still not enough.

So I pillage whatever I have within reach, then reluctantly make peace. He wanted a city, but was content with HBR.

And from here, tensions is almost 100% sure to rise between Sury/Charly.
Would slow down whipping abit but still continue, grow and build up more and then be ready to attack later. (Preferably in piggyback mode).
Far from ideal, but don't think there was much choice from that point and situation still looks very much playable.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler To T110 From the T105 save :

First I sell PH for 55g, then I trade construction for mono with Charly. (This is probably good, as it gives him a war tech).

Pigs for Sugar with Vicky, and add a 10 turn reminder to renegotiate with her then. (So noone can ask us to stop trading with her).

Build a new granary. It was Willy who destroyed it. (Can see who lost EPs on us) Not going into Hindu earlier is probably risky, Willy is kind of nasty, does plot at pleased too.

Currency from Vicky. Try to swap around techs, giving her as little as possible to avoid harsh diplo hits with the others. Got -3 with Justinian but we recently met him so thats going to fade. And getting currency is important so.

Good things come to those who wait it seems. Was this due to us not declaring...? Or was it because he got construction? Puts the game in a much better position though.

Was in revolt for 2 turns since 105, but I did add some HAs and some sword. Swords are nice, much cheaper than elephants and get good odds with CR promotions anyway and can act as defenders in a pinch.
I saw some axes of yours promoted CR, I don't like that.
The few axes I add to the mix are only to defend against melee, so axes get c1+shock.

More jungle cleared, and more workers stolen.

 

[Berks]

@krikav

Some very instructive posts there! The army use was excellent and I think you are right about the spears.
I tend to like building them as the AI loves mounted counterattacks. Not used to having Elephants I guess!
Selling PH is also a good idea I missed! Doh!
I possibly should have whipped a Monastery in Bantay so I could work the Banana faster, instead of building the Hammam. Thought I could chop + 2 pop whip it but its' not really needed. 2 cats is much better.
My idea with Raja first was to deplete his excess units by not capturing it for a few turns, but he actually bypassed its' defence which I have not seen an AI do before.
Maybe because I only had a Warrior in Bursa and he was able to snipe at least 1 worker with a Chariot?

Why is trading with Vicky not risky, if everyone else hates her? Am I missing something with worst enemy trades?




While you were going through this, I tried another go from my 250BC save and waited to declare.

Was a bit weird - Charly red fist went away after a few turns, so I declared T110. Charly then declared a bit after I traded him Construction, so your theory might be correct.

He is crushing Sury, already taken 2 cities. I have taken 3 cities in this attempt, but Sury just got LB's. I feel my army's strong enough to keep pushing.

I also switched research and teched Aest, which I sold for about 500g across the board, then Drama, and I can be second to Music most likely.

Its 175AD in this save. Bad part is I have nothing to bribe Charly off with (Maybe Music when I get it?) I can't sign peace as Sury would vassal to Charly right away.
Also I did the Hindu switch in this, and begged 10g from Willem to prevent a backstab - Willem likes Sury and was only cautious with me prior to the switch.

Will leave this for tomorrow and think whether I continue from this save or not. I'm also going to replay the opening offline again as I think I can do much better after seeing your attempt.

Thanks again for all the time you're spending on playing, reviewing and commenting. I hope I'm not the only one getting the benefit from it.

 

[krikav]

Trading with Vicky is risky from that position, but it's still very early in the game and the beaker value of techs are still somewhat low, so the risk of hitting -4 diplo is low. And getting currency in that position was worth it I think.

If noone else, then at least I benefit from this. It forces me to make my thoughts more concrete if nothing else.

I think you are doing the right thing, playing openings several times and comparing results, thats a good way to build up the correct intuitive sense of whats right and what timings are necessery etc.